Job hunting... again.

Many of you know that come the new year, I'll be beginning my search for a great job once again. Alex is going to daycare starting January 7, which means I'm going to have to find something else. I will keep working with him on Thursdays, when he doesn't have daycare, for as long as I can--and if my Thursdays are taken up, I was also offered Saturday mornings to look after him and do a bit of housework.

It's sad to leave, I will say that--after caring for him forty hours a week for the last five months, I've grown quite attached. However, Alex was SUCH a good kid, and I'm worried if I go back into nannying I won't be quite as lucky. And having witnessed some of Alex's playmates' tantrums, I'm not sure if I could deal with that on a daily basis (as someone caring for a child--if I was their parent, I'd be employing some extra disciplinary action!)

So once again I face the question: what do I want to do?

This question has become quite easy to answer in theory. I can't remember if I've written about it before, but I recently learned you can make enough to live on if you get popular on YouTube and make enough videos. I've been watching a couple who do their own "reality TV show" by basically just filming as they go about their daily lives and uploading 20 minutes of it every day. Neither of them have a different job, and they're doing quite well for themselves.

I think I would find that incredibly enjoyable. I'm not saying it's easy--far from it, considering I haven't bothered to upload anything to CBBC since August. You'd have to remember to film, constantly have your camera on you, if you filmed tons you'd have to edit it down, and you'd have to make it interesting enough that people would actually want to watch you. Not to mention at the start, waiting for/trying to get subscribers (the people I'm talking about have over 60,000).

It would be a long haul, a daily commitment, subject to stop making you money at any time--yet the thought that I'd have the freedom to govern my own days is highly appealing. As it would be to anyone, I'm sure. But I feel like if I had the money for such things, I could go more places, do more things, if I didn't have work hanging over my head. I mean, just thinking about doing this Europe trip and heading off somewhere for a month--wouldn't it be cool if my "job" was just travel vlogging or something?

Or blogging--blogging would work too. I've seen loads of advertisements looking for bloggers. It's just been about topics I'm not all that interested in. I shouldn't be so choosy, I know.

But the other problem is, how to be interesting and appeal to people? I guess I sort of look at my life and think, "Well, guess I could call THIS video People Who Hate Laundry A Lot." Or: "Browsing Facebook for the Umpteenth Time, But My Friends Are All Sleeping At 4am."

I figure I have a few things to work with: travel, books, and being in a long distance relationship that worked. Those sound like interesting topics, right?

My resolution is this: every week day that I am not otherwise employed, I will:

a) Send off at least three job applications.
b) Write a blog post / make a video about SOMETHING. Such as:
        - Book review.
        - Travel (visas, travel sites, locations, restaurants, etc.)
        - Pinterest experiements--offering a plethora of topics.
        - Daily life post.

Hopefully by doing this I will at the very least get into the habit of taking the time to put up something. And while I doubt it will lead to riches, at least I'll be productively engaged. I was pathetic between graduation and employment. Granted, for a month of that I had a cold so horrible it made getting out of bed difficult... but even so!

I have to stick to this, friends. Maybe I'll call January JanBlogMo... that might keep me on track. ;)

Europe Planning

Update on our trip through Europe!

Basically, I spent all Christmas Day planning our trip through Europe. I've been running into a few snags in that we don't know exactly what's happening in the next year in regards to money, given that my job's ending soon and I don't yet have another one and Cal's job is ending soon after that. We might be able to afford to go December 2013, we might not. Regardless, a lot of flight booking sites aren't allowing me to look so far into future anyway. But here's the general plan thus far:

Brisbane, Australia to London, UK.
Stay in London for a few days, getting over jetlag by visiting familiar sites (for me, anyway).
Day trips from London: Dover, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Oxford, Canterbury.
(Total time with London as "home base": ~7 days)

Train up to Edinburgh for a night or two.
5-day tour around Scottish Highlands through Haggis Tours (look 'em up, they're awesome). Would prefer non-tours and ability to do our own thing, but as public transportation isn't great up there, this is much more convenient and relatively well priced, too.
(Total time with London as "home base": ~7 days)

Train back to London; probably stay the night.
Train to Paris, stay one night. (We just want a picture with the Eiffel Tower, basically--we're okay with a short amount of time here)
(Total time in Paris: 1 night)

Flight from Paris to Rome (only 40ish pounds each!)
Stay in Rome for 3 days, soaking up the various sites and what have you.
Train to Florence (only 1.5 hrs!), stay for a few days.
Train to Venice (2.5 hrs), stay for a few days -- be sure to take a Gondola ride and hit up Murano.
(total time in Italy: ~8 days)

And that, my friends, is 3/4 of our planned month-long trip gone--and here is where it gets a bit dodgy.

Austria: probably take train from Italy. Not exactly sure what we want to do here, except that we want to go. Salzburg, perhaps?

Prague: A few nights, again, can probably take a train--hit up main attractions.

Germany: Head to Munich, from there do a day trip to Neuschwanstein Castle (accessible by train), along with Schwangau Castle and the Museum of Bavarian Kings. (able to see all in one day--right next to each other).
Probably also see Berlin.

Netherlands: Spend a few days here, soaking up Cal's heritage.

Belgium: Just one day in Brussels.

Then: Take train from Brussels back to London, flight from London back to Australia.

I think you can tell where my internet stopped working and/or I got sidetracked looking at backpacking backpacks. Getting so excited for this trip. But I had to cut out Norway, Spain, and Greece for this particular itinerary--as it is, we'll be running ourselves pretty ragged, and I want to take some time to enjoy what we are seeing, and those three places I think need a lot of time spent in them. Oddly enough, Norway, Spain, and Greece are three places I'm most interested in, but I think that just means they're the places I want to spend the most time in, and there's just not enough time!! They're also the places I can see taking kids to down the track (I know it seems like a long way off, but by the time we head Europe-way again, we'll probably have them).

So here's the timeline of our various travel:

January: New Zealand.
Possibly December: Europe.
After/Between: I'd like to do some more travel within Australia. I figure I get to do more of this once Emily and Sarah get here!

GUESS WHAT!

...I'm married. Here are some of the pictures taken on the day! We're getting professional photos done on December 16. Enjoy! Ceremony took all of like five minutes. :P We're now going to the bank to get a joint account, and then heading off to go swimming at South Bank. REMEMBER: This is still very much on the DL! Cal's family doesn't know yet. When you see my relationship status change, then you can talk about it. :P

Stroke of brilliance!

YOU GUYS I HAVE HAD THE BEST STROKE OF BRILLIANCE. Okay, maybe not the best. It's not electricity or the internet or, I don't know, the wheel or something. But I'm really super excited about it because it's going to be kind of fun. But I can't tell you what it is, because that would ruin the surprise and possibly give an unfair advantage. And I know this is only confusing you. And probably this is going to be more for me than any of you, anyway.

BUT THE POINT IS I would like your addresses (/PO boxes/wherever you get mail). I have already messaged some of you asking for them. I will also mention beforehand that it has a slight Hollins theme to it, but people who didn't go to Hollins can also give me their addresses if they don't mind. (Ah, the plot thickens!)

Also, I've done poetry. POETRY, PEOPLE.

Anyway. You'll know when you know. Not sure when exactly this will happen. But if you'd like a little something from Australia, you know what to do.

November!

So, uh... I'm getting married in like a week and a bit. What's that about?

I wanted to post a sort of timeline of events for you people who know. We're getting married at like 10am on November 24, which is about 8pm (or wait--7pm now?) on the 23rd. HOWEVER, we are getting pictures done on December 16. I have no idea when pictures will be ready for us to put up. I *kind of* want to wait to change Facebooky information until then. We'll see how I feel. We will be taking some pictures obviously on the day (unprofessional ones) and also a video. I'll put the video up later that day for people to watch who want to watch. So basically, if a relative lets it slip on Facebook or something, I think I'll put some pictures up. But I'd really rather wait until the professional ones are done. At which point I will:

1) Change my name on FB (though it won't actually be changed in Real Life until I get back to the States. Apparently I have to be there in person? I need to research it more.)

2) Change relationship status.

3) Change status to something funny.

4) Upload professional pictures (we're buying a disc of images, which will contain all of them, and we're able to do that--without watermarks!)

So then, my friends, you can let the secret out. Because it won't be secret anymore. Unfortunately, this might not be until January. Apologies.

Anyway, IT'S NOVEMBER!! And I have spent a good ten days of it not feeling well at all. I had another cold for a week, and then the past few days I've just been feeling sick to my stomach and have barely eaten anything at all. I was hungry today though, which is good, so I think I'm doing much better. Way better than my new housemate who had an allergic reaction to our Thai food yesterday. I felt SO bad for her. Luckily Cal and I are First Aid and CPR certified, though, so you know. We were ready with our invisible epipens.

Sickness was really NOT good for NaNo. I mean, I've actually stayed on target pretty much every day except one, and made that one up. And the words aren't struggling to get on the page, it's me having the willpower to use up my free time to write. If I just sat down and did write or die like three times it wouldn't be so tough. But I'm not, even though I should. And I've just been exhausting myself again with all of this like a lame seven tentacled octopus.

I'm going to try to get ahead this weekend. I didn't end up going to a write-in that I wanted to go to on Saturday because I still felt kind of down in the dumps, but THIS Saturday there's one at South Bank, so I really super duperly want to go. Going to try, anyway. Maybe meet Cal for a swim after he gets off work.

Have to get ahead so that I can have a non-NaNo-wedding-weekend. Cause Cal already had his birthday NaNoed on. (He's in for a rough life, this kid, I'm telling you.)

Book Blogging/Vlogging

I really want to get back into book blogging and possibly book vlogging. I mean, now that I'm reading roughly a book a week again, I want to record exactly what I'm reading and what I thought of it. So this is my promise to myself to do just that.

(Because I really need to do SOMEthing productive with my time!)

Nostalgia

I am feeling a bit nostalgic for childhood. Well, maybe just for autumn. No, childhood autumn. When we went on field trips to nearby farms to get pumpkins. When we raked up gold and red leaves and jumped into wet piles. When the skies were cloudy and the air was cold. Jeans and sweatshirt days, curled up with a book and watching misty rain gather in drops on the windows, smelling the cinnamon rolls baking in the oven. Drawing faces on pumpkins with permanent marker and watching my dad cut them out to our exact specifications. Squishing into the pumpkin goop and sorting goop from seeds. Laying the seeds out all nicely on a tray and covering them in salt. Crunching on them while watching Hocus Pocus. Trying to figure out how the heck one costume or another was going to fit over a snowsuit. Setting up home base on Halloween evening at my uncle's house and going out with my older cousins, feeling cool because we didn't need our parents around. Getting dimes from the lady down the road, and giant candy bars from the funeral home.

So I guess, on reflection, THAT might be why I'm so blah lately. With the seasons swapped, it doesn't feel at all like October should, and more to the point, Halloween simply isn't a thing that's routinely done. Apparently they had "Halloween pumpkins" (they call squash "pumpkin" it's weird) available at the supermarket for the first time last year. They have them there again, but it's going to be 90 the next two days, and I think that would leave the pumpkin a rotting mess on my doorstep. It's too warm for jeans or sweatshirts, there won't be many, if any, children knocking at my door for candy, no real excuse to get dressed up... Granted, the trees ARE a bit confused and have been dropping brown leaves like crazy, but they aren't as pretty.

In which case, my solution for the coming Octobers is this: take this country by storm. Halloween like no one has Halloweened before. I'm thinking Halloween party bash, with apple cider and cinnamon and pumpkin seeds and pumpkin-flavored things and candy and costumes and... I mean, it'll be more fun when I have kids to entertain. BUT STILL.

Oh, and, uh... I don't mean for there to be any spoilers, but a LITTLE BIRDIE told me that Tinker Day is on Sunday. In Australia, anyway. ;)